


Stars Below

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24195736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: Even in the dark days of Imperium Nihilus, hope shines.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Stars Below

The city bled.

Through its veins were of mortar, its bones ferrocrete, it suffered all the same. Far-distant machines of war hurled their munitions without end. Heat and light battered the grand old buildings of Hive Algast. They had survived for uncounted ages, but that oldest enemy - betrayal - had undone them at last. Stone sweat beneath the barrage. The canals ran over.

Below the tortured surface, two women flinched as another round detonated above. Aftershocks shook the chamber roof, covering them both in a further layer of dust and ash.

Neither lowered their las-rifles to brush away the debris. There had been five more members of the squad when they entered the catacombs. The Archenemy flooded into the Hive’s lower levels like rats when the Imperial assault began. Both sides were fighting with all the desperation and fury of cornered vermin.

A shot cracked out, breaking the tomb-stillness. Small compared to the rounds fired by Basilisk artillery, but far closer. It echoed away through the endless halls.

The lead of the pair raised a fist, signing a halt. The faded name-tape across the breast of her clamshell carapace armour read ‘Meese’. That of her following companion read ‘Kett’. A patina of grime covered their grey fatigues, black berets and half-plate. Exhaustion burrowed into their bones, even the adrenaline running dry.

A howl. Another shot. Closer, this time, down a hall, bordered by murals of local Saints and saviours, their names and deeds lost to time. Meese led off again, Kett a half-step behind.

No regiment assigned to this campaign used solid ammunition or autoguns.

‘Infighting?’ asked Kett, scanning the side-chambers they padded past. ‘Warbands?’

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ replied Meese. ‘Cohesive until now.’

‘You’d think Chaos would be less organised.’

Meese chuckled. ‘That’s the Emperor’s own truth. But all this time, in the dark…’

She didn’t need to finish her thought - it was common enough on the new frontiers. The Cicatrix Maledictum had torn the Imperium in half, wounded it near unto death. Whole systems had fallen from the Emperor’s grace, cut off from the light of His blessed Astronomican. Alone, afraid, beset by old foes and new, worlds once-loyal had embraced the madness of Chaos. The Era Indomitus had been painful, over a century of slow reclamation.

A corpse lay face-down ahead of the pair, in a puddle of cooling blood. Rifle ready, Meese nudged it with the tip of her boot. No response. Most of the head was gone, chips of white bone visible through the red ruin. She hadn't expected one, but she’d seen too many unholy feats of endurance to let down her guard completely.

She risked a glance back at Kett. The other woman shrugged. The Archenemy forces they’d fought so far had been more likely to wield hammers, knives and crude blades. Not high-calibre firearms.

Another shot rang out, startling them both by its proximity. In a moment, again sounded a terrible, heart-chilling roar.

Meese sprang forward. She rounded a crumbling pillar towards the bestial noise, Kett close on her heels. What she saw stopped her cold.

A man, clad in bloodstained archivist robes. was pressed back against the far wall. In his hand was a brutal pit-fighter of a pistol. At his feet lay several bodies, each dispatched with precise shots to the head. Before him - back turned to the newly-arrived Guard - was a creature from the very pits of the Warp. A crimson-fleshed beast with yellowing horns, wielding an axe of light-drinking iron.

And it was laughing.

Laughing as the terrible wounds on its body closed. Laughing as it took another step forward, savouring the growing terror of its prey. No death at daemonic hands would ever be quick or simple. Especially not for those who resisted the foul might of Chaos.

 **Strike again, mortal,** it spoke in a voice of brimstone and carnage, **if you dare.**

But the next shots did not come from the terrified scholar, a final prayer on his lips, his aim shaking. They came from las-rifles firing in unison. The air cracked with the discharge of energy weapons dialled all the way up. The daemon squealed in agony, the pitch far higher than its previous injury. Whole sections of muscle and meat vapourised.

It attempted to turn, to face its attackers, but too much of its material essence was gone. The bridge between worlds was too brittle to allow further regeneration. With a howl of agony and loss, it dissipated, driven back to its foul realm.

Meese blinked.

‘Never that easy,’ she said. ‘You a Saint, Kett?’

‘Not yet,’ her partner replied. ‘That might have something to do with it, though.’

The scholar had collapsed in a trembling heap amongst the bodies. His pistol dropped from nerveless fingers to rattle on other discarded implements. Claw-hammers, trowels, and other assorted tools of defacement and vandalism.

Giving the pair an unobstructed view of the chamber’s end. An enormous, wall-spanning mural.

Upon a stylised voidship bridge stood the God-Emperor of Mankind. His countenance was grave, his arms crossed as if in thought. He gazed beyond the view-screens to stars strange and unknown. This was not the modern Emperor, the martyr on a throne of gold. This had been when he walked amongst mortals, at the Great Crusade’s very height. That first, grand adventure to restore humanity to its birthright. To reclaim all that Old Night had stolen away.

The Archenemy had tried to destroy it. They searched for such symbols of hope and promise, to tear them down, to pervert them.

On the mural, around the golden figure, stood several proud-faced men and women. Not angels. Not the fabled Primarchs. Common, base, unaugmented humans ready to brave the hostile galaxy. Ready to confront all the horrors that lingered in the dark.

Ready to make the stars safe once more.


End file.
